How To Give Your Photography Bucket List More Value With a Fresh Perspective

This made me start to rethink the Bucket List I have been adding to for the past few years, as well as the reason for being an aspiring landscape fine-art photographer. If the photos (and locations) on my Bucket List are the same as bigger named photographers like Lik, Carr and Lough Jr, what value will my picture of the same place bring to the community or a potential customer’s wall? I then started to consider that maybe a photographer’s Bucket List — in specific mine — shouldn’t be about the resale value of the shot (ahem, Peter Lik) or what the other Pro’s are shooting (ahem, William Carr) but about the story and learning experience that the adventure creates and making it your own. 

The Bucket List 

Some of my favorite photos taken (by me) and more popular sales have not been trending shots at all, but those taken along the way to the recognizable shot location. Trips to Yosemite, San Francisco or Zion should only provide the point of entry to the photo waiting to be discovered. You betcha I am going to shoot the landmark everyone else has also taken but with their iPhone, however, I am also scouting for something that isn’t already in some gallery in Las Vegas (or insert your town here) or doesn’t look like a screen-scraped copy of Peter Lik’s Instagram. 

I want the shot people will ask “Where was that taken?” and then they go back to chase it with the same zest that I had discovering it, yet thanking the Lik’s and Carr’s for inspiring as well as pushing me to be a more creative photographer. 

I’m going to accomplish this by combining to different types of bucket lists. 

The first is the traditional “things to do (or photos to take) before I die or to build a portfolio” list. The second is a much more specific list of shot styles, genres or subjects that separate me from everyone else. By always keeping these two lists aware of each other I can keep my photos original, creative and fresh. 

Traditional Bucket list

• Fly Geyser (Black Rock Desert)
  
• Burning Man (Black Rock Desert)
  
• Death Valley National Park (California)
  
• Zion National Park (Utah)
  
• Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada
  
• Salk Institute of Biological Studies (San Diego)... you get the idea 
  

 Make The Shot Yours. Own It With Style

• Ocean Sunset with intense blues in the water
  
• Foggy tree-lined path
  
• Old brick building on a foggy pasture
  
• Candid people in their emotional element
  
• Black and White portraits of clowns
  
• Long exposure of partly cloudy skies
  
• Bonsai Rock after snow w/Icy water
  
• Tornado and lightning storm 
  

 Always remember that your Bucket List should be a living, growing list of amazing places to go and new ways to look at the ordinary. Yes, look at other photographer’s Instagram, Flickr and 500px profiles for inspiration, then set out to discover them. 

Have an adventure, strive to see more, do more and create more stories.